Memento
by Pandora Culpa
Summary: Some memories need to be preserved. Written for Evil Whimsey's 2008 Fahrenheit 107 Fic Challenge.


_Alchemist Rebuilds Bridge, Saves Twelve..._

Scissors make a soft _schuss_, as they trim out the strip of newsprint. He hums absently, laying it out onto the beige paper and affixing it alongside similar clippings with small squares of tape. The article secured, he pauses, looking back over all the others that crowd the pages of the scrapbook. He knows the tales they tell, often in greater detail than the journalist who wrote the words, but he spends a moment on each of them all the same. Spanning back over the course of almost six years, their tones ranging from outrage, to incredulity, to sheer adulation, they detail the works of a single man, and he has kept them all.

_Town Water Supplies Purified By Passing Alchemist..._

Even when the name isn't given, he knows who has done the deeds. Sometimes the proof came in a hasty and messily scrawled report, flung carelessly on his desk, and sometimes intuition informs him. But he's never wrong. And with or without the name, the article is removed and secured with the rest.

_Burcheesa ne 'Fullmetal Alchemist'- Coud' Amestris- Lixhana Purvast e Hochant..._

Some of the articles, he cannot even read. Fingers brush lightly at the edges of the clipping from Creta's main paper, with its yellowing photograph of a youth nearly swamped by the crush of a crowd, face alight with fierce pride. He always pauses here, as much for the photograph which captured the young man so perfectly, as for the fact that this article nearly escaped his collection. It was the first he'd found from another country, but he soon expanded his net to capture the ones that followed. Cretan, Drachman... even a slender slip of rice paper from Xing, printed in symbols he couldn't hope to interpret, but prefaced with an artist's rendering in bright paints.

_Fullmetal Alchemist Captures Serial Killer From Eastern City..._

He seldom sees Fullmetal any longer, being busy with his own duties, while the young man travels incessantly; a holdover from the perpetual quest which made up his early life. The days when the young man would appear in his office unannounced (and less frequently, when requested) are long past, though still close in memory. The heavy scrapbook he keeps, filled with pages upon pages of illicit peeks into a life with which he'd only ever been peripherally associated, is the nearest thing he has to the once-familiar, volatile companionship he'd known with the Alchemist for the People.

_State Alchemist Institution Abolished; Alchemists Turn In Their Watches..._

He had hoped, with the passing of the wars and the return of peace, to see more of the prodigy he'd found years ago, to watch him grow into a man of distinction, receiving the recognition and accolades his enormous talent deserves. With a chuckle of irony, he thinks that he's gotten at least half of that desire, if not the half he'd have preferred. And his hands curl possessively around the edges of the book.

_Former State Alchemist Rescues Kidnapped Diplomat..._

One day, he thinks, he will donate the scrapbook to the Central Library, so that this young man's illustrious history can be fully appreciated by the archivists. The stories it tells are so astounding and various that each deserve their own book, but the little clippings will have to suffice to relate the tales to future generations. He knows how easy it is for history to sweep past, and for even men as extraordinary as Edward Elric to be forgotten beneath the weight of the years. But this book is his own personal crusade against the negligence of time. It's the least he can do, to preserve the best memories of his former comrade.

With a sigh, the Fuhrer closes the book, slipping it back in its customary location behind the hanging files in his desk drawer. Someday, he'll share it with the world. But not yet. For now he holds the memories close, private; his vicarious involvement with a person who has wandered beyond his ability to touch.


End file.
